Steins;Gate – 19

It shouldn’t be surprising to see Okabe do everything possible in order to save Mayuri. But when he needs to save Mayuri’s murderer, too, then things become a little complicated. And add in the possibility of them working together, even though Okabe will never forgive Moeka for what she did in alternative timelines, to find out who FB is just makes things even more complex. Never a dull moment in Steins;Gate, that’s for sure.

Moeka has been one of the more intriguing characters of the series, mainly due to her role in the mysterious Rounders and being the chief murderer of Mayuri. Her secretive nature and anti-social tendencies originally were humorous at first, texting Okabe when he was standing right in front of her, talking to her and having that nonchalant look on her face despite sending thousands of cheerful and verbose text messages. But it grew into something more serious when the series took a dark turn and she became an obsessive freak over FB. Her role in the Rounders, too, showed a completely different side to her personality than we were initially lead on to believe. So I’ve been looking forward to this episode for some time now.

We didn’t focus a whole lot of this episode on Moeka. Rather we followed Okabe in his quest to reverse her D-mail before Mayuri died again. We did see Okabe fail to reverse the D-mail twice, though, leading him to believe that the Moeka that’s receiving these messages is not reacting differently to them (a problem I brought up a while back). That means for Okabe to reverse Moeka’s D-mail, he must convince the Moeka of the past to act different. And the best candidate for that would be FB, the one Moeka has always looked up to. But without any clues to FB, it comes back to Moeka, who isn’t exactly willing to give out information on her ‘motherly figure’ especially after Okabe punched her and stole her treasured cell phone.

The mystery of FB has begun to be uncovered and likely will be finished in the next episode or thereabouts. Apparently FB contacted Moeka right before she committed suicide, offering her a position and making her feel wanted. Still depressed, she questioned this mysterious benefactor who constantly reassured her of her value and meaning. Though FB, Moeka found purpose to her life and begun following all of FB’s orders, which most likely lead her to be a part of the Rounders and become anti-time-machine and anti-Mayuri, too. Since then, she’s been following orders for FB, which explains certain events in previous episodes, as well as her stealing the IBN-5100. But Moeka has never seen nor even spoken to FB, mainly because she feels that FB would find her worthless, reject her, and abandon her if FB ever got to know her. But it appears she’s already been abandoned, especially since Okabe had come from a future where he saw what will happen to her. So just who is this FB and why have they used Moeka in such a way? That’s for the next episode to answer with Okabe determined to uncover FB and use their cell phone to undo Moeka’s D-mail.

And like the previous episodes in this D-mail reversal arc, we saw some sides of Moeka that were never seen before, just like what we saw with Faris and Ruka. Moeka was certainly more active and emotional than ever before, screaming, crying, fighting, and fearful, very different than what we were used to. She was emotionless through most of the former episodes, even when she sends joyful texts or was murdering someone, so her emotions and expressions were new to us. We learned a bit about her psyche, too, that behind that expressionless face lies an extremely fragile, dependent, and depressed lady, often on the edge of suicide and in need of attention and love. And we learned about her empty relationships with FB and the Rounders. It’s depressing to think that the only person who cares about her is Okabe, a man who will never forgive her, punched her in the face, and stole her cell phone. But I suppose that’s what happens when you’re used by an evil organization that turns you against your friends from the original timeline. Hopefully she can soon remember the former timeline when she was with everyone and everyone was being friendly to her.

What happens next with FB, Moeka, and Okabe should be thrilling. We’ll finally get to learn the true culprit and motives behind Mayuri’s murders, the Rounder’s reasons for trying to prevent time-travel, and possibly learn why Mayuri is destined to die at certain times in each timeline. However, what I’m most interested in is seeing how Okabe, Kurisu, and Moeka work together. Moeka gave away the location of the IBN-5100 after Okabe convinced her that FB abandoned her, meaning she’s starting to turn back to Okabe’s side. Kurisu and Moeka are complete strangers in this timeline and both don’t know what’s happened in previous timelines (Moeka did kill Kurisu once, so there’s that), so watching them work together will be an interesting dynamic, especially since Okabe already knows everything. And finally figuring out who FB is will be exciting, especially if it’s someone we already know. Oh, it’s never a dull moment in Steins;Gate.

One thing that has never been brought up is Okabe telling Mayuri she will die. He’s always kept that a secret from her. Well, really, he’s been keeping that a secret from everyone and only recently started telling Kurisu. But I wonder how Mayuri would react and feel about hearing that. She seems to know a lot more about what’s going on than has been lead on at this point, so maybe she’d know of something to do once she found out about her coming demise. The subject might be covered if reversing Moeka’s D-mail fails to solve the problem. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Now this is the Steins;Gate we all know and love! Intense, facade of characters crack under severe pressure, plot progresses rapidly, Okabe inching towards a Mad Max styled hero, paradoxes, conundrums and other dilemmas of time travel!

I’ve been reading around a lot and this episode simply rejuvenated everyone’s enthusiasm in the series. And it’s about time, too, since the past two episodes felt kinda lackluster even though they fully developed two characters. It’ll be interesting to see if this energy continues into the next episode and lasts through the end of the series in a lil over a month.